Li Ang took out a raincoat, packed up the Mothman, and stowed it away in his backpack compartment.

His two teammates had no objections. After all, the creature was Li Ang's spoils of war, and there were probably plenty of similar monsters to come in the latter part of the script.

The three of them walked down to the hotel lobby, took a map from the magazine rack by the door, and walked out onto the street.

Steel and concrete skyscrapers were adorned with mottled green, numerous slender plants growing from the cracks in the walls, slowly but firmly lifting the concrete.

What should have been a smooth, clean concrete surface was now overgrown with dense trees and weeds. A gray-brown hare hopped across the street and disappeared into the shrubbery in front of the audiovisual store.

The many vehicles parked along the street had long since rusted and been scrapped. A pack of grimy stray dogs passed in front of Li Ang and the others.

One of them, a large German Shepherd-like dog, jumped onto the roof of a car and barked fearlessly at Li Ang and his companions, barking ferociously.

"Where did this dog come from?"

Li Ang, never one to be outdone, barked back at the dog a few times, then bent down, picked up a rock, and hit the dog squarely on the head.

The big dog yelped and fell from the car roof, and the pack behind it scattered.

Li Ang charged forward, picking up the unconscious large dog from the ground.

To Wanli Fengdao's surprise, Li Ang merely used a stick he picked up from the ground to briefly check the unconscious dog's physical condition before tossing it aside on the road.

Noticing Wanli Fengdao's look, he casually remarked, "Why are you looking at me with such an incredulous expression?"

Wanli Fengdao coughed awkwardly. "I thought you were going to skin and gut this dog on the spot and whip up a dog meat hot pot."

"Don't smear my reputation! I am a true good Samaritan! I not only spare animals, but I also can't bear to eat plants, fungi, air, or water containing bacteria!" Li Ang sternly rebuked. "In my spare time, I practice life-release with spiders, rats, snakes, mineral water, sewage, industrial gases, and nuclear radiation waste.

"Especially with fish, I'd grasp their tails and repeatedly release them into the water, liberating them thirty times a minute, frantically accumulating merits.

"Even the Bodhisattva appreciates me, dreaming that I would star in the Central America co-production of 'Journey to the West,' set to start filming in the second half of the year, playing the role of the fake Monkey King.

"As for why it's the fake one, that's because there's only one true Monkey King in the hearts of people across the world."

How many times are you going to use that joke?

And I suspect you're mocking certain groups again, but I have no evidence.

Wanli Fengdao chuckled dryly a few times and quickly moved past the topic.

Actually, Li Ang had a reason for knocking the dog unconscious. The dog didn't have any severe radiation sickness; it was well-nourished, quite healthy, and showed no signs of having been confined or domesticated.

This was enough to prove that, at least within this city, a complete ecosystem with minimal radiation impact had formed.

Even if nuclear bombs had exploded here, it must have been at least ten to twenty years ago. The residual radiation was unlikely to cause serious harm to living humans in the short term.

Although the radiation problem seemed manageable, they couldn't take off their hazmat suits yet.

Heaven knew if the many people who once lived in this city had disappeared because of some kind of airborne virus.

Li Ang left the unconscious dog by the roadside and, checking his map against the high-rise buildings on either side of the street, managed to identify their location.

"According to the map, Libra Company's biological laboratory is located northwest of the city, about an hour's drive from where we are," Li Ang said.

Li Ang took out a drone and scouted the area, noting that the closer they got to the city outskirts, the more lush the trees became.

The biotech laboratory was situated in an area indistinguishable from a thriving primeval forest.

The three of them each took out their motorcycles and rode along the highway for a while. Once they reached the suburban forest, they put away their motorcycles. Taking out their machetes, they chopped down the thorns and shrubs blocking their way and advanced on foot in a triangular formation.

The reason they resorted to this clumsy method instead of leaping from treetop to treetop was that another team might also be in this jungle.

The louder the noise, the greater the likelihood of being discovered by the opposition.

Fortunately, the three players' physical conditions had already reached the peak for ordinary humans, so their speed through the jungle wasn't slow.

"Wild bananas? Tortoise Shell Bamboo? Anacondas? Squirrel Monkeys?"

Li Ang used his machete to kill a giant snake disguised as a vine and muttered, "Is this Boston or a tropical rainforest?"

Just as the players were wondering why they hadn't encountered any mutants along the way, an extremely strong shockwave came from the northwest.

The ground trembled, branches and leaves were violently whipped around, forest birds were startled into flight, and anacondas were shaken from the trees.

The three players rooted their feet to the ground as if they had grown there. A moment later, the muffled roar of an explosion belatedly sounded from the northwest.

The three exchanged glances and, no longer caring about concealing their tracks, used their respective abilities to rush towards the source of the explosion at high speed.

Only by obtaining three points would they count the mission as complete. If the other team finished all mission objectives first, then their own side would have to annihilate all enemies to have a chance at earning enough points.

Running at full speed, Li Ang and the others quickly arrived at the edge of the explosion zone.

They didn't rush in but instead concealed themselves in the bushes, peering ahead. The reference version of this chapter is on *.

CRACK, CRACK, CRACK—

In the depths of the dense forest, large trees kept snapping and falling. Small mammals such as monkeys scrambled out, panicking as if fleeing a disaster.

The sound of breaking trees kept approaching the three players.

As a tree as thick as a person was snapped and flung away, Li Ang and his companions finally saw the source of the noise.

It was a giant American Leopard in a rage, its eyes destroyed.

Its stature was comparable to a full-grown Mountain Demon—its shoulders about a story high, its body robust, muscles strong, and limbs thick and short.

A casual swipe of its paws, comparable in size to door panels, could snap any tree blocking its path.

Most importantly, the patterns on its body that should have been black spots had all turned white.

Upon closer inspection, those white patterns weren't spots at all but clusters of snowy white worms burrowing out from deep within the leopard's skin.

Those worms were Human Skin Fly Maggots, which could burrow into a host's body to gather nutrition and then burrow out again after pupating.

The giant American leopard, completely infested with Human Skin Fly Maggots, showed no discomfort. While these worms drew nutrition from it, they also formed into clusters of worm-pillars. These, like cannonballs, would shoot out from its skin in all directions, helping their symbiont kill enemies.

The real reason this Mutant American Leopard was raging mad was that it was surrounded by three humanoid players, running along eaves and walls.

They were hovering around it like flies, launching high-frequency attacks.